Migrant Tales insight: Another excellent posting by Migrants’ Rights Network on how immigrant communities challenge politicians who spread lies and reinforce prejudices about migrants. We need such a campaign in Finland.
Writes Don Flynn:
#MigrantsContribute! is a social media-style name for a campaign that aims to bust into the mainstream with its core message that, far from being the unwelcome border crossers looking for a free ride so often presented by unscrupulous politicians and headline writers, migrants come to the UK full of hope and expectation that they will have the opportunity to contribute fully as fully rounded people in British society, and not merely exist as dehumanised factors of economic production.
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Don Flynn*
We have now entered the final twelve months of the longest general election campaign in British history. That so, it is good to hear that migrant community groups are working together to get messages across to the population about the positive case for migration.
The report from our friends and colleagues at Migrant Voice about the representation of the viewpoint of migrants in the mainstream media makes shocking reading. We are supposed to be right in the middle of a ‘grown-up’ conversation about immigration and its impacts on life in Britain and yet in 77% of the coverage of this issue the people most directly involved in the business of migration do not even get a look in.
With these facts as a backdrop, the news that the initiative is being seized by a group of people from migrant communities with a project aimed at elbowing their way to a more prominent position in the public discussion is very welcome.
#MigrantsContribute! is a social media-style name for a campaign that aims to bust into the mainstream with its core message that, far from being the unwelcome border crossers looking for a free ride so often presented by unscrupulous politicians and headline writers, migrants come to the UK full of hope and expectation that they will have the opportunity to contribute fully as fully rounded people in British society, and not merely exist as dehumanised factors of economic production.
The first public presentation of plans for #MIgrantsContribute! was made by Tatiana Garavito at the national conference Stand Up To Racism held in London last Saturday. Tatiana is the director of the Latin American Women’s Rights Service and the current holder of the Young Woman of the Year Award, given each year by Women on the Move.
Her arguments in support of #MIgrantsContribute! are set out in the blog featured in MRN Migrant Pulse. She explains how people from migrant communities are “upset” when they hear how political parties are “prepared to use lies and distortions about migrants, which are far from the truth, to gain votes and encourage a hostile response to migrants.”
The campaign will be making use of an array of messages aimed at countering these negative images of migrants, setting out facts about all the things that they bring within them, aside from their desire to work and get on in life.
Supporters of #MigrantsContribute! have moved quickly to set up a Facebook fan page and a Twitter account. In the next few days it will be launching the #MigrantsContribute Manifesto. People who want to sign up to the campaign will be invited to submit ‘selfies’ showing their support for the initiative.
Watch this space to follow developments with #MigrantsContribute!
Read original story here.
This piece was reprinted by Migrant Tales with permission.
*Don Flynn, the MRN Director, leads the organisation’s strategic development and coordinates MRN’s policy and project work. He is a regular and sought-after speaker at conferences, seminars and lectures on behalf of MRN.